Sweet & sour crab

I've never cooked crabs in my life, let alone thought that I'd ever cook it. I promised to make my parents dinner for their 32nd anniversary so i had to make something nice, it was going to be crab meat in tauhu at first but i couldn't find any ready crab meat and there were some mud crabs for sale, so i got some and decided to make this dish.

Quick flip through the Hawkers fare cook book to check on the ingredients for this dish, turned out simple enough. Most recipes calls for deep frying of the crabs before cooking, but i flagged that cause its too messy and unhealthy since we're so upping the cholesterol factor in this dinner.

Ingredients:-

Crabs-800gm

Ginger julienned - about 1 inch

6 cloves garlic

2 big red chilli's

4 chili padi-flag this if you're not into hot food

4 tbsp of diced spring onions

4tbsp of tomato sauce

3 tbsp of chili sauce

2 tbsp vinegar

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp sugar or to taste

1 tsp salt

1 egg

corn flour water

water to simmer

Heat some oil till smoking hot in the wok and then add in ginger, garlic, chilli's, spring onions and saute till fragrant. Add in crabs and all the seasonings and some water enough to simmer the crabs in, cover wok and let it cook for 4 minutes. Give it a taste and adjust to your liking, if you desire it to be more sour, add in more tomato sauce/vinegar. Thicken with corn flour water and turn off flames before adding in the beaten egg, give it a good stir. By turning off the flame before adding in the egg, this will ensure that the egg's not overcooked and it'll provide the sauce with a smooth silky finish. Enjoy my steaming hot Sweet Sour crabs!

Pork Chop

Here's a quick dinner idea! Pork chop that's pre-marinated during the weekends and chucked onto a grill/pan fried on a weekday. I normally have this with packed salads that requires no washing or cutting, but since mum was here to help with the preparatory work, we had stir-fried cabbage with carrots as our sides. Carb was omitted since everyone's been complaining that they're packing on weight!

Here's what i marinated my chops with(about 6 pieces):

-Sesame oil enough to coat ever piece of chop

-Salt rubbed onto every piece

-A big dash of Chinese cooking wine

-Ginger juice - about 2-3 tbsp

-Some cracked black pepper

I normally don't make sauces to go with my chops but my dad is strictly on to sauces when it comes to meat, so i made a quickie sauce with an onion, flour, chicken granules, sugar and soy sauce. Just heat up some oil and add in the onions and fry for 2-3 minutes before adding in plain flour, just enough to lightly coat all the onions, give it a good toss before adding in water. Leave it to simmer and add in the chicken granules to taste. Sugar gives a little balance to the savouriness of the dish, but i usually go sparingly like 2 tsp and a dash of soy sauce. Soy sauce is more for the color here though :)

Hokkien fried noddles

Aside from achieving a near black color and having lard in my noodles, this is as authentic as I could get towards this Malaysian fare of ours. I thought it tasted really authentic and it was a great quick and easy meal to have.
Here's what you need:-
A packet of yellow noodles
Some 'choy sum'
Prawns
Pork slices - marinated with soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, oyster sauce and some corn starch
Pork liver

For the sauce:
Sufficient dark soy sauce to achieve the desired color that you want for your noodles
Chicken granules/chicken stock -to taste
A dose of sugar
A dash of light soy sauce
A dash of sesame oil
Some chinese cooking wine-nothing more than 2-3 tbsp

Method:
Heat up some oil and fragrant some chopped garlic till it turns brown and then add water/chicken stock to the wok (if you use water, then add in chicken granules). Once it comes to a simmer, add in the noodles and let it cook till its soft to your liking, when almost done, add in the pork & veges, leave it to simmer for about 3minutes before adding in the liver and lastly the prawns. Once prawns been added, don't cook for more than 3 minutes otherwise the liver and prawns will be overcooked. Serve HOT and best with Sambal! Yummmmm

Cotton Spongecake

The baking bug bit me again, so i had to make something! I chance upon Baking mum's blog and was thrilled to find this recipe. I've never baked a sponge cake before but i've always loved good sponge cake, so I decided to try it out. It turned out FAB!!! Best texture i've ever had from a sponge cake, was so so cottony soft it feels dreamy when you eat it.

Just to share my experience on this cake, the cake comes out from the oven looking absolutely fabulous but sinks a little once it cools down, here's a picture for comparison. Had some cream in the fridge which is about to expire so i had it whipped up with some frozen raspberries and sugar to sandwiched my cake. I covered the whole cake with cream in a rustic manner (no effort home food for me)

The downside to creaming this cake is the cream gets too heavy for the cake once its cut and it wouldn't keep especially if you had frozen fruits in it cause it tends to get watery. Best consumed within the day!

Beef Stew/Casserole

This is a totally wholesome meal with all the nutrients and flavor, best thing is its suitable and great for babies.

Ingredients:

800gm of diced beef

2 big onions

3 large potatoes

3 carrots

1 brocolli

1 can of tomato sauce/puree

2 tbsp of plain flour

Water to stew

Oregano to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Chicken granules to taste

Heat oil in the wok and saute the diced beef for a minute or two before adding in the flour. Make sure the beef has been well coated before adding in the onions, carrots, potatoes, brocolli, give it a good toss and then add in the can of tomato puree. Add water sufficient to cover all ingredients and cover the wok and leave to stew till tender. Normally takes anything within 30-40 minutes. If you desire your veges to be less mushy, then reduce cooking time and vice versa. Add the seasonings half way through cooking and adjust to taste when the dish is almost ready. This can be made the casserole way, simply put the sauteed beef and all the other ingredients including the seasoning into a large casserole, sufficient water to cover all ingredients as well and put into a 180C oven to bake for 1-1.5 hour.Love this on its own or served with rice/bread/pasta even.

Taking her first steps

Little Alyssa's got a new obsession lately, ie standing up and waiting for an ovation from her audiences! She's just a few steps shy from being declared that she can walk, today's the first time she took 1.5 steps unaided, BRAVO!!! Silly parents tsk tsk tsk...if you haven't got a bub yet, you probably wouldn't understand yet hehe...look at her trying to balance herself up, soooo cute. Sorry this is a proud mum's self indulgence hehe...She's very active for a girl, maybe cause she's been playing with too many boys at day care, funny that her age group has a majority of boys. I'm quite excited about her being able to walk on her own but on the other hand, she'll be even more demanding on our time where we'd have to watch her every second then. That would mean no more cooking once my parents have gone home :(

Nasi Lemak

I think Malaysians can never stay away from Nasi Lemak for too long, and so i decided to once again indulge!

Here's a picture for the Sambal, for the recipe click here http://foodtravelandbubs.blogspot.com/2008/04/sambal.html don't know how to just show the title and not the whole link, if anyone has any idea, please share. Scary isn't it seeing the amount of oil bubbling away.

Here's my mum's Beef rendang, recipe to come soon. Better learn up on my mum's good eats before she goes home to KL.